​Major network upgrade underway as CallPlus joins forces with Juniper

New Zealand’s third-largest Internet Services Provider CallPlus, part of the M2 Group, has migrated its core network to Juniper Networks, providing at major upgrade at the heart of the company’s national network.

Terms of the deal will see the telco move across to Juniper’s PTX3000 Packet Transport Routers, establishing a Converged Supercore designed to better handle voice, video, Internet and private network traffic growth for years to come.

The need for a more robust network comes following CallPlus’ acquisition of rival ISP Orcon, and increased customer usage of high-speed broadband connections last year.

In cementing its place as the principal challenger to New Zealand’s broadband market leaders by acquiring Orcon in June 2014, CallPlus subsequently lifted its customer base to more than 220,000 subscribers - equivalent to a 15 percent market share.

In addition, the company also expanded its VDSL offerings, enabling customers in areas still awaiting the rollout of the Government-led ultra-fast broadband (UFB) fibre network initiative to get online speeds of up to 50 Mbps.

“We’ve grown to the point where updating our network architecture to include a dedicated MPLS packet core has become an absolute necessity and Juniper Networks PTX3000 is an ideal solution for us,” says Adrian Dick, Chief Technology Officer, M2 New Zealand.

“This is not just about dollars per Gigabit; since we started working with Juniper more than three years ago, the company has proven to be an outstanding business partner with a deep understanding of our needs and the ability to deliver and support solutions that make commercial sense.”

According to Dick, these acquisition accelerated the need for CallPlus to upgrade its core network; both to accommodate Orcon customers on the same infrastructure used by the rest of its customers and to allow for the continued exponential growth in core network traffic, driven by increasing demand for high-speed connectivity and video content.

Simultaneously, Dick says CallPlus needed to be “extremely mindful” of operational economics given the small but highly competitive nature of the New Zealand market, with more than 80 ISPs signed up to deliver UFB services.

As a result, deployment of Juniper Networks PTX3000 Packet Transport Routers gives CallPlus multi-terabit scalability within its core network with each node able to support a high density of 10, 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet fiber optic connections.

In short, this gives CallPlus huge headroom to accommodate continued core network traffic growth and a better flexibility in configuring its backbone network.

“The core network is the critical element in a service provider’s architecture; it is where the continuous pressure to deliver is the most unrelenting,” adds Ken Lord, Country Manager, Juniper Networks New Zealand.

“CallPlus is now in the position to evolve its Converged Supercore to flexibly accommodate new levels of peak demand while improving the economics of the core network infrastructure.

“By converging packet and optical networking into a single device, the Juniper Networks PTX3000 dramatically reduces complexity in the network core while delivering the scalability and flexibility needed to quickly adjust to traffic demands.”

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